


Death, Be Not Proud

by coloredink



Category: Highlander, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, M/M, major character death but it doesn't really take
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-12
Updated: 2011-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-17 23:18:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're an Immortal," says Sherlock.  "So am I."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death, Be Not Proud

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the contest at , for [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/2262.html?thread=2517462#t2517462) asking for a Highlander crossover. Thanks to everyone who voted for me!

John opens his eyes with a gasp. The air going into his lungs _burns_ , and he gives a series of great, chest-rattling coughs, curling onto his side.

The front of his shirt is wet and sticky. John touches his fingers to it. They come away red.

He stares up at Sherlock. "You _shot me_."

Sherlock is sitting on the couch, in much the same spot he was fifteen minutes ago when--yes, John remembers now--he shot John in the doorway of their sitting room, just as John was getting back from doing the shop. The Tesco bags are still where he dropped them. There's an impressive amount of blood in the carpet now that's probably going to come out of their rent.

John peers under his shirt. There's a damp reddish smear on his chest, but under that, unblemished skin. He's fairly certain he should be angry at Sherlock for _shooting him_ , but he doesn't appear to be dead, or even hurt. "I don't--what--"

"You're an Immortal," says Sherlock. John is quite certain Sherlock capitalised the I, although he isn't certain how he knows that, or how Sherlock even does that. "So am I," he adds.

"Oh," says John. "Wait, what?"

"Allow me to demonstrate," says Sherlock. " _Don't_ dial 999," he adds, and proceeds to turn the gun on himself.

The next few minutes are filled with rather a lot of shouting. John pulls off his shirt, empties one of the plastic bags, scrambles on his knees to the couch and presses his makeshift bandage over the pulsing wound, while Sherlock claws at the cushions in agony. When John fumbles his phone out of his pocket, however, Sherlock seizes his wrist in a painful grip and rasps, " _Don't_."

"What--"

"Awkward," Sherlock replies, and then his eyes roll up in his head as he loses consciousness.

John remains on his knees by the couch, still pressing down on his friend's fatal chest wound. The clock on the mantel ticks the seconds. John notes that Sherlock put down some plastic on the couch, ostensibly to keep his blood from getting all over it. How considerate.

After five minutes, John stops applying pressure to the wound. He sits back on his heels and rubs his eyes with the back of a bloodied hand. Then he gets up, goes to the kitchen, and washes his hands.

Five minutes after that, Sherlock wakens with a gasp, much as John had. Great deal less coughing, though. John has put on a clean change of clothes, and is presently trying to scrub as much of the blood as he can out of the carpet.

"Welcome back," he says, wearily. "Care to explain what this is all about, then?"

\-----

Half an hour and several cups of tea later:

"You'll need a sword, of course," Sherlock concludes. "Fortunately, I know a very good swordmaker."

John pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "And this is why you shot me?"

"Better to die and be revived when your body can still endure combat," Sherlock replies. "As it is, you already have reduced mobility in your arm, but that can't be helped."

John sighs and lets his hand drop. "How did you die, then?"

"I fell off a waterfall in Switzerland in 1891," says Sherlock. At John's stare, he adds, "I was locked in a struggle with a criminal mastermind at the time."

"Oh," says John. "Is he--"

"Yes," says Sherlock. He looks profoundly irritated.

\-----

The very good swordmaker that Sherlock knows turns out to live in Japan, and the very next day they are on a plane, first class to Narita. Sherlock, in a rare display of quiescence, lets down his seat back until he's almost horizontal, stretches out his legs, and closes his eyes, hands folded on his chest.

John, meanwhile, is still letting the pieces slide and lock into place. A great many things make more sense, now.

"I never needed to shoot that cabbie, did I?" he asks, quietly. The thought makes him feel a little betrayed.

"Probably not," Sherlock concedes. "But I appreciate the sentiment. Still do," he adds.

John runs over what he knows of Sherlock in his mind. "Is Mycroft--"

"Is a Watcher," says Sherlock. "You're not supposed to know about them. But no, that's not really an umbrella, either."

\-----

"Oh God," says Donovan. "The freak's catching. Now you're even starting to dress alike."

John smiles sheepishly. The coat is far too dramatic, and the sword is an unfamiliar weight at his side.

God knows what he'll do in the summer. Whatever it is Sherlock does, he supposes.

\-----

John has just entered the pub when it hits him: not pain, but a prickling behind the eyes that washes out all his other senses. His gaze sweeps the room, and he ends up meeting the eyes of a young man at the bar, who's wearing a similarly stunned expression. The stranger's mouth tightens, and he gaves John a tight nod, before slipping from his stool and disappearing out the back door.

"Let's not do this here," he says, when John steps into the alley. "Too many people."

"All right," says John. He wasn't expecting this to be so civilised.

They walk to a nearby park and hop the fence. John has the old and familiar thought, _I'm getting too old for this_ and has to repress the urge to laugh.

At last, the young man stops and draws his sword. "This good?"

"Fine," says John. He draws his own sword and raises it, feels his muscles slide and lock into place.

After that, the last eight months of endless drilling and sparring take over. John is dripping with sweat and fairly steaming in the night air, but his blood sings in his veins and his breath fills his lungs, and this is better, so much better, than burgling blackmailers' houses and tracking demon hounds across the moor and speedboat chases on the Thames. This is something simpler and more immediate, the ancient and universal struggle for survival, man against man. Their swords meet in a screeching clash of metal on metal, and John can't keep the furious grin from his face.

The man takes a step back into a mud puddle and slips, just a little. Just enough. John doesn't even think, just knocks his opponent's sword away and brings his own blade down on the man's neck. He barely even feels it; Sherlock's swordmaker _is_ very good.

\-----

Sherlock knows, of course, as soon as John enters the room. He's on his feet within seconds, and John crushes him against the wall, pushes their faces roughly together.

"You didn't tell me it'd be like this," he pants.

Sherlock's mouth quirks up on one side. "It's only like that at first, and only for some people."

John bites Sherlock's lower lip. "Do you want this?"

"God, yes," Sherlock says, and his deft fingers start their work on John's belt buckle.

They end up fucking rough and fast on the couch, Sherlock's pyjamas puddled on the floor and his dressing gown rucked up around his waist. John doesn't even get his trousers all the way off, only pushes them down to his knees. He turns Sherlock onto his front and enters him roughly, not enough prep, but Sherlock doesn't seem to care. He claws at the couch arm and bites his lower lip and gives a sharp little cry with each thrust, until it runs together into a wail. John finishes first, and is so dazed that he can only watch as Sherlock finishes himself off.

"Sorry about that," he says. He's still breathing fast.

"Don't be," says Sherlock, without looking up from where he's mopping himself with a corner of his dressing gown. "We have all night. We have forever, really."

\-----

Afterwards, they lie in Sherlock's bed, the sweat still cooling on their bodies.

"How was that, then?" asks Sherlock. "Your first Quickening."

John draws in a deep breath. "Amazing. Brilliant."

Sherlock smiles without opening his eyes. "That's what people usually say."

"Piss off," John says, affectionately. "Have you done this for a lot of other people, then? Coaching them through, through immortality?"

"Never," Sherlock replies, clipped. His brow furrows slightly, and he somehow manages to look insulted despite lying on his stomach in bed with his eyes closed.

"Oh." John stares at the ceiling in amazement. "Why, then? Why me? Why go to all this trouble?"

Sherlock cracks open one eye and glares balefully at John. "Because you're _mine_."

John thinks he should find the statement comforting, but his guts continue to twist as he rolls onto his side to look at Sherlock. "We're going to have to kill each other eventually, aren't we?"

"So the Game decrees," Sherlock agrees.

John ponders this. "If we're the only two left," he decides, "then you can kill me. There's no one else I'd rather have do it," he adds, and is surprised to find that this is true.

Sherlock has both eyes open now, and is staring at John as if he's a five-day-old corpse dumped in front of Buckingham Palace just before the Changing of the Guard. "Don't talk rubbish," he snarls, and stretches out one long arm to reel John in. He tucks his head under John's chin and winds his arms and legs around him. "And live on for an eternity alone? The thought fills me with dread. The _boredom_." He shudders.

"But," John protests.

"Shut up," Sherlock tells him, and John does.

**Author's Note:**

> [coloredink.tumblr.com](http://coloredink.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [sumiwrites.wordpress.com](https://sumiwrites.wordpress.com/) (if you wanna see the books I've written)


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